Insights · March 1st, 2010

One of the amusing, and sad, things about discussions of the future of transit in the U.S. is that it is so often discussed in one of two ways, both intended to make it seem rather outlandish. First, it is discussed as something vaguely foreign – sure, they have widespread transit in Europe, but we are not like them. Or, second the concept of widely accessible transit is presented is simply not a possible idea, like it has never been tried in whatever city is in question (except New York and Washington DC). So, when commentators like Duncan Black simply point to historical maps of transit systems in city after city, I can only wish we could go back to the future with transit. Here is the map of Seattle’s old transit (street car) system from 1933. It went everywhere.

Category
Transportation
Nikolas Badminton – Chief Futurist

Nikolas Badminton

Nikolas is the Chief Futurist of the Futurist Think Tank. He is world-renowned futurist speaker, a Fellow of The RSA, and has worked with over 300 of the world’s most impactful companies to establish strategic foresight capabilities, identify trends shaping our world, help anticipate unforeseen risks, and design equitable futures for all. In his new book – ‘Facing Our Futures’ – he challenges short-term thinking and provides executives and organizations with the foundations for futures design and the tools to ignite curiosity, create a framework for futures exploration, and shift their mindset from what is to WHAT IF…

Contact Nikolas